


And Years From Now at Night (The Storm Will Break)

by prince-amidala (princeamidala)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: ???? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Luke Skywalker Has Issues, Luke Skywalker has PTSD, M/M, No beta we die like the younglings in order 66, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and then i get frustrated that ppl don't use the tags so i can find stuff easily, canon adjacent, fics i wrote in the notes app of my phone instead of sleeping, i can never think of tags when posting, omg i just realized i have to pick a title for this too, only when searching, probably, so far - Freeform, what the kriffing hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:40:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29392812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princeamidala/pseuds/prince-amidala
Summary: Din & Luke go to an ice planet in the outer rim for a small mission. Lukes seems...off.Or, the one where Luke has trauma due to what happened on Hoth and Din provides comfort. That's basically the whole fic.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 21
Kudos: 166





	And Years From Now at Night (The Storm Will Break)

**Author's Note:**

> [@ameliajessicawilliamspond](https://tmblr.co/mKi0T7rx8ZEdNM6LZ49m2aA) suggested a dinluke ficlet where Luke has an aversion to the cold/snow. This is the result?
>
>> Warnings for descriptions of trauma, PTSD/panic attacks, and dead bodies (ppl and tauntauns).

The mission was simple and Din didn’t need to come along. Luke had reminded him of this repeatedly, a slight edge to his voice that was more characteristic of his twin sister than the usually calm Jedi. And Din wanted to bite back with his own aggression, but a voice in the back of his head (one suspiciously similar to that of the Armorer’s) told him that we don’t abandon Clan when they need help...even if their way of asking for help is counterproductive. So Din decided to come along. After all, Luke didn’t forbid him from joining in, he just said he wasn’t needed.

And okay, maybe Din was giving Luke a little bit of the silent treatment on the hyperspace flight over, but he’d decided that his primary job was to be there for Luke, not to force Luke to spill his emotions. It was just convenient that his personal objective aligned with his desire to pout.

Sitting in the cockpit of the scrap of junk he’d managed to get his hands on, Din wondered if he had ever been so willing to put up with someone else’s emotions before. When—in the time since he’d given up his son to Luke, met Luke again by chance, and started regularly going on assignments together—had he begun to think of Luke as Clan? More importantly, what was so bad about a simple recon mission to a nowhere ice planet? Land on Eredenn IV, locate the abandoned Imp base, decide if any of the hard drives were functional and if they contained the right information. In, out, no shooting required.

A single, hoarse scream pieced the air, breaking his thoughts. Without hesitation, Din jumped to his feet, hand instinctively on his blaster, and rushed to the small sleeping cabin on the ship. The voice that screamed was distinctly Luke’s, which didn’t make any sense because 1) Luke was supposed to be resting and 2) he didn’t scream in his sleep.

Heart pounding, Din jammed the button to open the cabin door and ground his teeth together in anticipation. Even a few seconds was too long.

“I’m fine,” Luke’s voice met him before the door could finish sliding open.

“Nightmare,” he answered Din’s unspoken question.

There, on the little cot that took up the majority of the cabin’s space, Luke was laying down and blinking his blurry, unfocused eyes. His face was flush, hair sticking up everywhere, and every inch of his exposed skin was coated in a thin layer of sweat. Kicking his legs, Luke tried to untangle himself from the womp rat’s nest the sheets had become, and Din moved quickly to help him. Only after they successfully rearranged the sheets over Luke did the lines of tension in the man’s muscles ease in the slightest.

Din stared down at Luke, tucked in cozy like a foundling, and said, stupidly, “I didn’t know you had nightmares.”

Of course Luke had nightmares, everyone had nightmares. Mentally reprimanding himself, Din searched for something else to say. Something to help Luke feel human and not like a glorified idol, meant to save the entire galaxy no matter the cost to himself. Like a being that can’t suffer their own pains, that must be infalible.

“I have them. About droid attacks, usually. Or being unable to save Grogu,” Din offered in a soft voice.

Luke stared up at him with his blue, blue eyes and made a little noise of sadness, but said nothing in response.

Din was alright with that.

Carefully, he eased himself to the floor, maneuvering his body to fit in the tight space beside the cot, and leaned against the mattress. Making sure Luke was watching, and could therefore react if he wasn’t comfortable, he took the man’s gloves hand into his own.

“I should rest too. Before we arrive, I mean. Hope you don’t mind.”

Luke stared at him for a moment before closing his eyes. He seemed to sleep peacefully.

~*~

Eredenn IV was cold as fuck and although it had a few decent settlements, the base they were looking for was in the middle of nowhere. Just to make their lives harder, the terrain around the base was uneven and unstable, meaning that they had to land Din’s rust bucket some ways off and walk. While his armor had a heating function, he couldn’t help but worry for Luke. After adjusting the controls on his vembrace, he turned to study the Jedi, who was still donning himself with additional layers.

“Have enough robes, Master Jedi?” Din tried.

Instead of giving his usual pity chuckle (which he gave whenever Din made “decidedly sad attempts at humor”—Leia’s words, not Din’s), Luke only looked up for a brief moment and then returned to his clothes. Letting out a soft sigh, Din walked over and leant a hand. Automatically, Luke dropped his arms and let Din go to work adjusting the cloaks. It was under this pretense of being frustrated at Luke’s lack of timeliness that Din took his opportunity to voice what had been on his mind since they arrived.

“You can stay here if you want. It’s a simple mission. I can be quick.”

A gloved hand reached up and wrapped itself around Din’s wrist. Even without a skin-to-skin connection, he could feel the warmth radiating from Luke at the point where their hands touched.

“It’s alright. We’ll go together.”

Luke’s words sounded sincere, but he did not meet Din’s eyes.

“Are you sure? Something seems...”

He didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Off? Wrong? As though Luke had done a complete 180 and become a different person?

Luke lifted his head up at that so he could look Din in the visor.

“Let’s get going and I’ll tell you a bit about it. Fair warning, it’s another one of my ‘crazy stupid war stories.’”

This was said with his usual mirth and offered with a smile. A smile, Din noticed, which didn’t reach Luke’s eyes.

Pulling away he simply nodded. At least it was progress.

~*~

He should’ve known it was a ploy—a load of bantha shit. The first thing Din noticed when they descended the ship’s ramp was how tense Luke became, which was saying something considering how tense he was before they even landed on the planet. Din had once heard that a human being can shatter their own bones if they contracted their muscles to their limit, and suddenly he was worried he’d witness this phenomenon first hand.

The second thing he noticed was the wind. Not only was Eredenn’s weather cold, it was cruel. The wind tore through the air, shrieking as it met the metal of his amor. It reminded him of an old Mandalorian phrase, “to rain knives,” although the phrase itself was obviously not about literal weather. Had it been, Din thought it would’ve been created just for this planet’s wind. The ferocity of the air cut through all his layers, making it so they felt rendered useless, and it seemed to compete with gravity to see which force could best knock Din down. Above all, it was loud. A banshee personified. This planet would not only slice you open and freeze you to death, it would make you listen to unholy screams as it did so.

There was no possible way they could talk while out in the open.

Din clenched his teeth and pushed on.

After some time, he noticed Luke was shaking. Of course, they’d both been shaking since the moment they’d stepped off the ship, but this was different somehow. One glance at Luke’s face and Din knew this was something more serious (and somehow, more sinister) than the cold. Luke was sweating.

Careful to retain his balance in the face of the violent wind, he positioned himself closer to Luke. There was nothing he could say, the weather made sure of that, but Din knew you’d be a fool to believe verbal communication was all that mattered. Reaching out, he clasped Luke’s hand into his own. Snapping his head suddenly, Luke stared at him, expression that of a man that’s suddenly pulled from a far off place. And then the corner of his lips softened slightly and he grabbed back. They walked like that the rest of the way to the base.

~*~

“Hoth.”

Din almost winced at Luke’s voice. It was rough, like how it had sounded the night before, and unexpected. They’d been safely inside the empty carcass of the base for a few minutes and had spent that time in silence.

Silently, Din turned away from the broken panel he’d been analyzing and focused on Luke.

“After we destroyed the Death Star—the first one—we moved our base to Hoth.”

“An ice planet,” Din hummed. Things were starting to fall into place.

“An ice planet,” Luke nodded, that same not-smile on his face as before. The one that didn’t reach his eyes.

“It was...odd for me. I wasn’t used to the cold. But it wasn’t really a problem, not until...”

Luke trailed off and Din froze, unsure what to do. But then he remembered when he was just a foundling, scared and scarred and feeling hopelessly loft. Then, an older kid—her name was Lya—had sat next to him and gently whispered that he could talk if he want or be quiet if he didn’t, and she’d sit with him either way. So like Lya, Din stepped forward and placed a hand on Luke’s shoulder and offered what little he could.

“You don’t need to talk about it. If you don’t want to. But if you do, I’ll listen.”

Luke looked up at him and offered a soft, sad smile. It wasn’t his not-smile, as it wasn’t an attempt to conceal the sadness that so often lurked in the depth of the man’s eyes. It was more genuine than that, and Din wished to all the stars in the galaxy that he could take away Luke’s pain.

“Thank you,” Luke said and then closed his eyes.

A deep breath later, and he seemed to have regained some stability. Some determination.

“Let’s keep looking. I think I’ll...I’ll continue.”

Din nodded, and they moved back into the halls.

“I got caught in the storm by a wampa. Big beast, native to Hoth. Extremely aggressive.”

Having seen several images of wampas before, Din couldn’t help but wince.

“It strung me up on the ceiling of its...I guess you would call it a burrow? Den maybe? Whatever, it was a cave. When I came to I was upside down and my poor tauntaun was...”

Luke wrinkled his nose. It was cute, silly even, despite the sad subject matter, but all Din wanted to do was wrap his arms around Luke and hold him. Logically, he understood that no matter how traumatic the event was, Luke was still alive. Whole and breathing. But even hearing the story made his heart race.

“I got away. My lightsaber was with me and unless that wampa had a stash of beskar it really had no chance once I got it back in my hands. Funny enough, I always forget the wampa thing happened. That part is always skipped over in my dreams. It’s the cold. I dream of being stranded and that endless, all consuming-“

Luke’s voice suddenly caught off and Din snapped to attention.

Looking through the doorway they’d come to he saw a mess of a room. The machines lining the walls had the scars of war on them—blaster marks bloodstains and all. Most looked completely unsalvagable, likely indicating that their mission was a bust, but Din didn’t think the electronic mess was what had caught Luke’s eye. No, it had to be the bodies.

At first, they stood frozen just outside the doorway, which itself was wrecked, sliding doors pulled open and warped just enough that a man could squeeze through. And Din wondered why this time, this scene, slammed into Luke and halted him in his tracks. Surely the Jedi had seen the dead before. Not surely, certainly. They’d gone on too many missions together to deny it.

Carefully watching Luke out of the corner of his eye, it dawned on Din. He was wearing a helmet, and Luke wasn’t. He’d taken what face protection he had off the moment they’d found reprieve from the storm. Which meant that Luke could smell the air.

While there hadn’t been heating in the base for a very long time, it was still warmer in there than it was outside. And dead bodies decay.

Turning fully to Luke, he saw that the man was crying. Silent tears slipped down his face as he stared, unmoving, at the scene before them. Without another thought, Din brought his palms up to Luke’s cheeks and gently moved his head so that the only thing in his field of view would be Din’s helmet. Beneath his gloved hands, Din could feel that Luke was trembling.

“What do you need?” Din asked.

He was not expecting for Luke to run.

Back down the hallway they came, around the corner and out of sight, Luke ran. Only a moment passed before Din’s thoughts caught up with his senses and he tore after the Jedi. Briefly, he lost track of his friend, but the base was quiet and empty, and Din was sure that doors didn’t sob.

Standing in front of a thin, out of the way door that likely slid open to reveal a storage closet of sorts, Din stopped and stepped forward. Lowering himself to a crouch, he spoke loud enough so that Luke could hear him.

“Luke,” he called.

“I’m sorry,” Luke managed to get out between sobs. “I’m sorry, please go. I’ll deal with this.”

Din paused, attempting to find the right words.

“You don’t have to deal with this alone, Luke.”

Muffled sobs filled the space between them, and then, “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

Din thought, choosing his response carefully.

“Then I won’t. See you, I mean. I bet there’s a light in there, is it off?”

A hesitant “yeah” was the only reply.

“Good. I’ll close my eyes and come in and we can just sit. Okay?”

There was no reply that time.

“Is that okay, Luke? I won’t come in without your permission.”

A brief pause and then, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Din echoed and then stood up.

Placing his finger over the button to open the door, but not pressing it just yet, Din announced that he was coming in. And then he closed his eyes, opened the door, and felt his way forward.

Sure enough, the space was nothing more than a closet, and definitely hadn’t been designed with the comfort of fitting two adult men inside. Even so, Din shut the door behind him and did his best to comfortably sit himself on the ground next to Luke.

“I’m going to put my arm around you, is that okay?”

Luke didn’t say anything, but he did immediately lean in, and Din accepted that as a yes.

Wrapped around Luke, he sat in the darkness, the only sound their breaths. Luke’s gasps for air slowly settled until his breathing matched Din’s. It was some time after that when he spoke.

“Han saved me.”

Din gave Luke’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

“He cut open his tauntaun so I wouldn’t freeze to death. I still remember what it feels like. The smell of something dead encasing me. I wasn’t really conscious then, but I remember.”

It was a lot to process, just hearing Luke’s trauma. It was a lot. And Luke was a lot. And suddenly Din got the urge to remove his helmet and so he did, not questioning his instincts for a second. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he realized that it should’ve been hard. A big, serious, difficult decision. But it wasn’t. His helmet was off and that was that.

He pressed their heads together, warmth spreading out from his temple where his skin touched Luke’s.

“It’s funny, isn’t it? There was an awful battle just after that. We were outnumbered. Outgunned. I thought we were going to die and the Rebellion would be over. But...but I don’t dream of that. I dream that I am alone in the cold, dying with each passing moment—surrounded by the flesh of the dead.”

Turning his head, he pressed a single, careful kiss to Luke’s own temple, and tightened his embrace around the man.

“You shouldn’t have had to live through that.”

Din’s own voice sounded foreign to him, impossibly soft. Like a stranger’s voice. A strange voice coming from some unseen man in that dark, unreal place that they’d found themselves in. But no, it was his voice. And that was okay. Everything was going to be okay, and he’d say as much.

“You’re not alone anymore, I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Constructive criticism accepted (but fyi this is not beta'd bc i have no time for that)
> 
> Eredenn is a Legends planet so I'm using it for my fic purposes. My criteria were "ice planet" and "location: outer rim" and Wookipedia provided. Oh also I decided it should start with E. 
> 
> I haven't written star wars fanfic in a while oh boy.
> 
> Anyway, I'm taking prompts for ficlets (either dinluke or gen--esp The Clone Wars) at tumblr, @prince-amidala
> 
> Title is from "Welly Boots" by The Amazing Devil even tho I promised myself I'd never ever name a fic w song lyrics bc i hate it. But i forgot i had to NAME this so i picked a song that makes me cry, you're welcome shout out to my geraskier babes <3


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